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Lord Mayors stance on employee pay increase the right thing to do

News Release

Monday 26th, February 2018

Lord Mayor Graham Quirk and Brisbane City Council deserve congratulations for their decision to go ahead and award employees a pay increase in defiance of moves by a small number of unions to delay the process, according to the Local Government Association of Queensland.

LGAQ chief executive Greg Hallam said the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission had ruled on new industrial relations laws, stopping a ballot of workers on a proposed new enterprise agreement because unions representing only 15% of workers did not support the ballot.

'This was despite the council and unions representing 85% of workers being happy for the matter to go to staff for a vote following a lengthy and drawn-out bargaining process,' he said.

'This episode highlights the strong influence unions have on Queensland industrial laws, introduced last year by the union-friendly Labor Government,' he said.

Workers are the losers here.

They have been denied their right to have their say and vote on their wages and conditions.'

Mr Hallam said the result was likely to be councils and their employees moving away from enterprise bargaining, a process that did little but deliver a monopoly to unions.

'This could be the deal breaker that ends certified agreement making as we know it in favour of a more inclusive and less formal approach which encourages worker participation and an improved say in how employees work and are rewarded for their efforts,' he said.

I suspect the Government and unions have underestimated the positive relationships most, if not all, councils have with their workers, who also happen to be constituents as well. Councils value their employees and, as a result, local government employment is highly prized and sought by workers.'